Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Mission Complete ❯ Redemption ( Chapter 33 )

Redemption

You yawn again, purposely making it last so the boys get the point. You stretch out on the bed and close your eyes, sighing.

"What are you doing? We're not done yet!" Duo protests.

You crack open an eye to peer at him. "Sorry, but I'm sleepy. Do you really expect to sit here listening to you guys ask me question after question, while over here, I'm getting more and more exhausted? No. If you want to question me, it can wait till morning." Without even bothering to see if he answers, you roll over onto your side and fall asleep almost instantly. Somewhat to your relief, they don't try to wake you.

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Loud voices… yelling… "What do you think you're doing? She can't be trusted!"

Another, softer voice, but still angry. "We don't have a choice. This is crucial, and we can't pull it off without her help."

"What do you mean, we can't pull it off? We're the Gundam pilots! Besides, you don't even know if she can pilot a mobile suit, much less-"

"Shut up," you grumble irritably, turning over in your sleep. "Quiet. I'm still tired…"

"She can and she will," the second voice answers. "Whether she wants to or not, she will pilot it."

"Didn't you hear me? I said, shut up!" you moan, turning so you're lying on your back. You're slightly more awake now, but your brain's still a bit sluggish, your eyes are closed, and you're half-asleep.

The door slams open suddenly, banging into the concrete wall behind it and causing a loud crash that you're sure could wake the dead. Your eyes fly open, soldier training taking over ('That's good,' you think. 'About time it came back from vacation'), and you sit up abruptly, eyes on the doorway. Your hand moves automatically to your belt, before you realize that the boys took all your weapons.

Heero walks in calmly, but with a brisker note in his step. Wufei storms in angrily after him, and the other three follow. "Wakey wakey!" Duo chirps, and you send him a death-glare that makes him wince and cower behind Trowa.

"What do you want?" you snap, not at all in a good mood. "I doubt I got more than three hours of sleep. What are you back in here for?"

Wufei scowls darkly at you. "One: you're our prisoner, so we can do whatever we want. And two: this is urgent, though I don't see why Yuy finds it necessary to involve you in it."

Your interest is peaked, and you stand up. You remember the voices you had heard while still half-asleep, and realize that the first was Wufei and the second Heero. The conversation goes through your head in fast-forward, and you realize a few important facts. Your eyes narrow as you speak. "You're the Gundam pilots, and you didn't tell me. And you need me for a mission of some sort, which involves having experience piloting MS. But interestingly enough, you think that you need my help because you can't pull it off yourself…"

"You heard that?"

You roll your eyes. "Oh, please. I bet everyone in a fifty-mile radius heard that. But I wasn't properly awake until…" You cast a significant look at the door, which had banged into the wall hard enough to cause a crack, where it was currently stuck. The pilots seem to get your point, however, and Duo seems to be holding back a snicker. You start pacing the room thoughtfully, talking as you do so. "Yes, I can pilot a mobile suit well enough. But I'm not helping you unless you promise me this is going to be against OZ, and give me details of the mission."

"Like you said, we're the Gundam pilots," Quatre says quietly. "Isn't that enough proof for you that we'd be going against OZ?"

You stop and turn to face him. "Well, yes, that means you'd be against OZ. But how do I know that this particular mission is against them, and not anyone else?"

"It's against OZ, all right," Heero tells you. "And it could end the whole trouble that they've started, probably even get rid of the problem that started it in the first place."

You stare at him in shock. "What did you say?" He just returns your look with a calm gaze, and you shake your head and start pacing again. "Okay, give me the mission details. And I'm guessing I'll need to pilot a mobile suit of some kind, but I also need to know why it's so special."

"This is a space battle," Trowa begins. "Near L1, in fact. It won't take long to get there; two days at the most. There will be a shuttle, carrying high-ranking OZ officers and even the leader himself to an OZ base, stationed on an abandoned L1 colony. We'll intercept it halfway there. They know that they have opposition, and will probably have a fleet of mobile suits and dolls to fight with, just in case. What they don't know is who their opposition is."

You nod. "In other words, they don't know that they'll be facing the Gundam pilots. I trust that your Gundams have been rebuilt?"

"Yeah. All five of them have been upgraded, too." Heero looks at you sternly. "There was also another built, originally for us to use if one of our Gundams were ever captured."

Your breath catches in your throat. "You mean you want me to pilot a Gundam?" Duo's grin provides all the answer you need, and you close your eyes and take a deep breath to steady yourself. When your eyes open again, they are staring at Heero with a determination that you reserve for only the most crucial missions. "All right then. Mission accepted."

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"Almost time," you mutter, staring up at your Gundam. You're in the hangar of the large Preventers spacecraft that you've "borrowed" for this mission, and you're more than slightly nervous at the thought of actually fighting in this thing during what could be the most important mission you've ever had. Glancing around, you float up to the cockpit and open it, slipping into the seat and running your hands lightly over the controls. The others had put a lock on the system so you couldn't just take it and run away. You could break it, of course, if given time, but you'd be shot down while trying to escape anyway. Leaning back in the seat, you lace your fingers together behind your head and stare upwards. However the mission went, this would be one heck of a day.

"Having fun up there?" Duo calls from down below, and you lean out of the cockpit to look at him.

"Yeah, sure," you yell back, before coming out, closing the door, and landing next to him. You shake your head as you gaze at it. "Wow. I can't believe that I'm actually doing this."

He chuckles slightly. "Well, you've learned how to pilot that Gundam quickly enough. Now all that's left is to test your skills in a real battle."

You sigh. "Yeah… too bad the first and only real battle I'll use it in will take place in about ten minutes."

"Five," a voice behind you corrects, and you turn around.

"Oh, Heero!" Your heart rate has sped up at the sight of him, and you mentally force it back down again. You write it off to surprise, but there is that one part of your mind that refuses to believe that… "Is it only two minutes now? And the seconds tick off until my death."

Heero just looks at you. "You'll be fine. You've piloted a mobile suit before."

You groan. "Yes, but never a Gundam…"

Heero shakes his head, obviously giving up on trying to boost your self-esteem. "You've proven yourself to be competent at this over the past few days, but you're going to have to follow all the orders we give you. No running away or turning against us."

"And why not?"

Duo leans casually against the wall. "Because Heero implanted a detonation device in your Gundam. It can't be activated from the inside, but he has the switch to it inside Wing ZERO. In other words, if you don't do as we say, you die."

You ignore Duo for the moment and meet Heero's gaze. "And what if I want to die?"

The other three pilots enter at that moment, and you gulp slightly. Four minutes. You're getting ready to leave now. Quatre nods to you, Trowa catches your eyes for a moment, and Wufei just plain ignores you. You roll your eyes, watching as Duo gets up and heads for Deathscythe-Hell. Heero walks forward too, and you think he won't answer your question. But as he passes by, he leans in close to you, and his breath tickles your ear as he speaks, causing you to shiver slightly. "Believe me… it's not worth it." He then says, in a louder voice, "Just do as we tell you to."

He continues walking in the direction of Wing ZERO, and you stare after him. "Heero…" you whisper almost silently, before shaking yourself out of it and walking towards your Gundam. Trying to ignore the feeling of nausea that's begun to rise in your stomach, you jump to the cockpit and open it, getting inside and closing the door. All is pitch-black for a moment before the systems start, and for a brief moment you're extremely glad you're not claustrophobic. Then the machinery whirrs, everything starts, and the lights around you go on as the screens brighten to show what's going on outside.

Heero's face appears in a corner of the screen to your left. "Let's go." That seems to be mostly directed at you, and you nod, trying to calm your nerves for a brief moment before you fire up the engines and follow the others out into space. The slight glint of a colony reflecting the sunlight catches your eye for a moment, but you dismiss it quickly. Three minutes…

You each reach your respective positions, near the path that the OZ ship will take but out of sight, ready to ambush at Heero's signal. Your heart seems to be thudding loudly in your chest, and it seems to you a wonder that the others aren't picking it up over the comm. unit. "Geez, how did you guys ever stand doing this?" you mumble, more to relieve the tension than anything else.

Quatre laughs quietly. "We managed." You fall silent after that, just watching and waiting. Two minutes…

"There it is," Wufei mutters. His voice is tight, controlled; not at all like the emotions running through your mind at the moment. You take a deep breath, and when you let it out, you let all the years of training take over. For the first time in your life, you actually try to rid yourself of all emotions like you were told to do… and somehow, it works. You feel your swirling thoughts gradually get replaced by… something else, a cool emptiness that fills your heart and mind and calms you down, getting you ready for the battle ahead. A single thought floats through your head as you prepare yourself; 'Is this what Heero feels all the time, whenever he does missions?'

Closer, closer… the ships and the hundred-some mobile suits/dolls that guard it pass the place where you know Heero is hiding. Even more, and they're past Duo… and then the first of the mobile suits passes right in front of you. Normally, it's at this point that your heart rate and breathing would speed up in fear and excitement, but this time… nothing. Your eyes just narrow, and you wait for the signal.

It comes when the ship is right in front of you. "Now!" Heero snaps, and you and the others spring into action. Before they know what's happening, the whole group of them is under attack from six different places, and you speed forward, whipping out your buster rifle and taking out a good ten of them before they can get over the shock of being attacked. As soon as they recover, however, at least two hundred more appear out of the large ship and start attacking, and the battle is under way.

It doesn't take long before your rifle runs out of power, and you throw it to the side haphazardly, noting in some far corner of your mind that it goes flying towards a suit that's about to fire at Quatre and distracts it long enough for a heat shotel to slice it in half. Instead of watching the others, you whip out your close-range weapon and proceed to speed through them, destroying anything foolish enough to get close to you. The same part of your mind notes that you've received no further orders; the others are as busy fighting as you are, and now it's each man - or woman - for himself (or herself, as the case may be).

At this point, the coolness has disappeared, to be replaced by a fiery anger that you've never felt before. You roar as you take down a few more suits, when a slight glow catches your eye. You back away from the battle long enough to take a quick glance at it before you go back to slicing and dicing your opponents, but as your brain realizes what you saw, you do a double take and take a closer look.

It's just as you feared; the spaceship is powering up its beam cannon. But to fire at what? Not the Gundams, definitely, they're too fast to be caught in such a blast… but then what would be-

The glow connects itself with the glint you saw earlier, and it suddenly clicks in your mind. The colony! They wouldn't be cowardly enough to do that… would they? But apparently they are, because your radar shows that that's the only thing of interest behind you. Why didn't any of the other pilots see it? Why didn't they say something?

You do a quick appraisal of your comrades' positions and curse loudly and vehemently. They're at the wrong angles! Quatre's under the ship, Wufei's fighting to the left and slightly behind where the beam cannon is mounted, Trowa and Duo are on the other side entirely, and Heero is backed up to the right of the ship, unable to see it even if he turned around. It's lucky that you spotted it, then, or else that colony would be history… 'AND IT STILL MIGHT BE, IF YOU DON'T DO SOMETHING NOW!'

You snap out of it quickly and do a lightning-fast analysis of the situation. Wufei's closest to the cannon, but to get to it, he'll have to fight through a whole pack of mobile dolls that are blocking his way. Heero's next, but he has his back to it and might not be able to turn around and move fast enough to avoid being shot in the back… and Duo, Quatre, and Trowa are out of the question. You're farther from the cannon than Heero, though not as far as Quatre. You might be able to make it in time, if you give it all you've got… but there's still a good chance that the cannon will fire first, catching you in the blast, as well as annihilating the colony. Not to mention you were told not to do anything without orders… and attacking the ship would not only be considered suicide, but without Heero's direction, could be thought of going against what he'd want you to do. But you can't let that colony be blown into bits…

You follow orders. You can't go down there - you might not even make it in time! So you use the comm. unit to talk to Heero and Wufei. You tell them the situation and let them handle it. - go to page sixty-one

You play the hero! Can't let them destroy the colony, now can we? Ignore what you were told to do (or not do). You go down there and try to stop them yourself. After all, if you try and contact the others, it would only distract them and could cause problems. - go to page sixty-two